If POST/POP was a 90s film noir, Kenny Lee would be Keyser Soze. While this label has been slowly gaining traction, scoring awesome band after awesome band, Kenny Lee has been watching from the shadows, quietly engineering things with whispers and half-gestures. You liked all the HETTIE stuff we’ve put out? All produced by Kenny Lee. You liked the Apple Eyes tape? Kenny was in that band! You definitely loved the Model village albums we put out… yes Kenny is in that band too. You see, without you knowing it, Kenny Lee has been in your life for longer than you realise, so it’s about smegging time he put out his own album… and what an album it is! Featuring all of your favourite POST/POP artists such as HETTIE, Model Village, No Cars (Yes, No Cars is on this album! I know, I’m excited too!) + members of Wolventrix (not released anything on POST/POP yet weirdly!) and a few other surprise cameos.

‘The Constant’ (an obvious nod to the greatest episode of LOST, nay the greatest episode of TV ever) is essentially the soundtrack to your next decade. Chockablock full of pop songs you had only dreamt about, at times 80s while others firmly futuristic. It’s like if someone made a musical of that time you were truly happy, but had nobody around to share that happiness with and then suddenly you do. The culmination of years of graft in myriad bands, Kenny has finally written his opus, and for those that have kept an eye on his output since dot, it’s everything you never knew you wanted.

By now, if you’ve listened to any of the album, you will have already bought it. POST/POP is around to bring you new music on the format you love, and if you don’t like this then there is no point in anything. It’s like a best of POST/POP before I actually do one (soon!), so get it now using the link below or click on the shop link to the right!BUY THE CONSTANT BY KENNY LEE ON CASSETTE NOW

oh and I directed the Hall & Oates inspired music video for ‘System Offline’ ft. Matthew Walker from APPLE EYES!

One of the main reasons why I started POST/POP was to bring new music to people, specifically on the format I love. The ‘Adventures in Home Taping’ series is the distillation of that. Each tape has been a snapshot of cassette culture at that time, perfectly chronicling the almost indistinguishable move from a more “punk” aesthetic to a “pop” one. I believe this has occurred due to the format reaching popularity among people other than those that typically grasp lost media to their chests and fly the flag for DIY. Cassettes have become an acceptable, viable and beautiful way to showcase your music, regardless of genre.

The r/cassetteculture subreddit, run by the mysterious Neztok, has been a haven for people and bands to find out more about the rise of cassette culture and also the history of it. Most people think there was a big gap between when the last big labels produced tapes and this new emergence/revival of tapes. There are some of us who never stopped loving/living/making tapes, even if it was just for those close to us, or those we want to be close to us. ‘Adventures in Home Taping’ is a way of recording what is happening now, to show the world that there are so many great bands who enjoy this format and love hearing their hard work played through it.

I’m proud to have started this compilation series and will continue to do so until Trump stops me taking American bands to make a UK label great. These are the 20 bands in question. Some you may know, some you will want to know more about. Let me know which ones you like the best!BUY ADVENTURES IN HOME TAPING 4 HERE (OR CLICK ON HETTIE ON THE RIGHT)

If you are in a band and want a label to release you on tape (you’re welcome to email me, but its best to cast your net wide!) then visit r/cassetteculture now!

As I’ve written before, Norwich is the new Manchester (which itself is the new Glasgow, which in turn is the new London). Its primary export right now seems to be bands that I can’t help falling in love with and I’m usually not so fickle with my heart, especially when it comes to music. Is it because I’ve lived in London all of my life and have become jaded with the identikit bands that circulate the city’s venues like clones programmed to think their individuals. I’m sent demos evry day from bands who are trying way too hard to be the XX (and just as annoying) when all I really need to get me going is something original. Something with its roots not firmly planted in the capital’s circle-jerk of self-congratulating, band-clone machine. Norwich’s ability to create bands like Mega Emotion, Treasureseason and Let’s Eat Grandma while here in London we’ve created Rita Ora means I will always side with our friends in the East.

PEACH CLUB is my latest fascination. Katie Gilbert, Amanda MacKinnon, Rebecca Wren and Charlie Hart are not the Riot Grrrls you want, but they are the Riot Grrls that you NEED. Now I’ve never claimed to be the poster child for Feminist Punk (yet) but I know passion and talent and fire when I hear it. It’s the sound of rebellion, channelled through 4 girls who on the surface might look like butter-wouldn’t-melt, but in reality, butter would become a gaseous form and dissipate into the eyes of every person who dared to cross them. Don’t discount this as preachy feminism, as that’s not what this is at all. It’s a celebration of being young with opinions and the anger at all that has come before, with the veiled promise to smash down the walls that threaten to barricade them in.

This is UK Punk on tape. Its incendiary. It’s a taste of things to come for a band who have only showed us a glimpse of their potential with this EP. It’s the kind of tape that in years to come will make people drool on Discogs, so buy now before I change my mind and set them all on fire cos sometimes I can be punk too.

As anyone with even a passing interest in me knows, my favourite film of all time is the 80s B-Movie ‘Night of the Comet’. Not only is it the blueprint for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but also everything I’ve ever done in my life. So when I got the opportunity to go to the “cinema” where final girl ‘Reggie’ works in the film (played by the criminally underrated Catherine Mary Stewart), I jumped at the chance. The venue was the El Rey, on Wiltshire in LA and as the taxi pulled up to that iconic entrance (where Reggie got locked out!) I nodded at the driver like he had just delivered me to Valhalla. “Look Tom…” I said to my friend Tom because that’s his name, “THAT is where Reggie got the high score in Tempest, they should have kept the machine here, it would have been better…” and “I guess the projection room where Reggie and her loser boyfriend stayed in overnight that protected them from the comet’s destruction is up those stairs on the left.. do you think we can see it?”. Tom shook his head no and downed his pint to block me out, for we weren’t there to satiate my desire to act out the first 10 minutes of Night of the Comet (though I tried), we were there to see one of our favourite bands play. That band is Islands and today POST/POP is releasing not one, but TWO new albums for them! ‘Taste’ and ‘Shall I Remain Here At Sea’ are the albums in question and both have all of the elements that have made me stick with Islands over the last decade or so.

You can listen to them both here, and I suggest you do because they will make your ears awesome:

This is the first double cassette album from POST/POP, mostly because the infrastructure currently doesn’t exist to manufacture double cassette boxes in quantity. I’m not talking about those 90s “rave” style DVD clamshell style double cassette boxes, I’m talking the classic butterfly double cassette boxes that open either side. Finding these in the UK is impossible so we had to actually make them! There is also the challenge of making a reverse j-card to fit in the second slot (sorry to get all “inside-tape labels” but people have asked questions!) and that was new to me too.

Both albums represent exactly what POST/POP is about. Innovative, catchy as hell and perfectly suited to a colourful rectangle of plastic. If you’ve already listened to this, you’ll want to buy the tape and as it’s in very limited quantities, don’t hesitate! I’m not sure when I’m going to do another double tape ( and for a band as great as Islands!) so buy by clicking on the shop link at the top, or that photo of HETTIE on the right, or even at the below link:

As I left the El Rey gig, all those years ago, Islands had led the entire crowd outside the venue to continue the gig on the pavement (sidewalk for the americans out there!) and let off some fireworks at close range to my face. It left me with an image burned into my retinas (it could have been a sparkler) that this band would always be a part of my musical lexicon and I am more than proud to be releasing this double cassette on POST/POP.

I think all of POST/POP‘s releases are important. I only release the bands I truly love. Bands I’ve either just discovered and its love at first sight, or bands I’ve loved for ages, but only worked up the courage to ask them the big question. Yes, it’s got easier over these last two years. Bands rarely say “No” anymore, in fact they seek me out, but it was very daunting at the start. One of the first things I did was document where cassette culture was in 2014. That my friends was the very first “Adventures in Home Taping” and its as eclectic as it is long. I followed that up on 2015 with “Adventures in Home Taping 2” which was a snapshot of cassette culture as it started to show green shoots into the mainstream. It had a lot more chorus and a little less noise.

THIS is the third Cassette in the POST/POP X r/cassetteculture compilation “Adventures in Home Taping” and its the best yet. I’ve found 22 new bands who all frequent r/cassetteculture and who all have a die-hard passion for all things cassette. This is currently the only true snapshop of the real cassette culture that has emerged from garages and underground gigs across the world. This represents a broad cross-section of bands/genres/styles from as far afield as Phillipines all the way to the sunny closed down mines shores of Sheffield.

Have a listen below. Some of it is genius, some of it is incredible and some of it, in a certain light, is pure insanity.

This compilation feels important because it IS important. That’s why I am making the first two compilations available to download for absolutely free. Just click on the shop link at the top and you can find them!

Thanks to all the bands who are on this tape. Without you POST/POP is just another tape label. With you, it’s the best. I know I’m biased but I’m also right.